We kicked off the meeting this morning with a shout out for the final push in registrations for the All in for Autism event coming up this Sunday – we were tracking well with last year’s event.  President Kaj hoped that Dick Brown will be able to weave his magic for good weather this coming Sunday!

Our inspirational thought and pledge was delivered by Jason Cherney this morning and was followed up by Dennis Newell who introduced our five guests this morning.  Thanking them for attending and reminding them that all are always welcome at the Bellevue Breakfast Rotary club!

We started the club program with an overview of the Adoption Party working group.  Adam Mihlstin started the presentation by providing an overview of the committee’s work and its impact.  This was followed by Tanya Franzen-Garrett who gave an heartfelt update about the work and its importance in the community, while rounding off with a call to action for our members to become involved with the committee.  Chuck Kimbrough finished the presentation with an overview of the work he has been helping to spearhead within our Zone to increase the number of Adoption Parties being hosted by Rotary clubs.  He been working with Bellevue Lunch in the campaign and through speaker outreach, the Reno Zone Meeting and the Vancouver Peace Conference the two clubs have being pushing the concept effectively.  Chuck also mentioned the changes within the DSHS that will mean the oversight will be moving to another function within the local government; fortunately, it sounds like the person overseeing this group is someone we can continue the work with.

In a lighter moment in our agenda this morning, we had Dennis Newell come up to promote our Retreat and in particular he was referencing the idea of visualizing success.  This was helped with the Caddyshack  Cinderella Story , showing Bill Murray visualizing his golfing prowess, or lack thereof, as a way to help reinforce the point with humor.  Dennis and John Schwager both made the call out to the members to get their surveys completed this weekend, as input to the planning session for The Retreat.

Always an enjoyable moment is the induction of a new member to our club.  President Kaj called up Kevin Klustner with his sponsors Morris Kremen and David Bolson in attendance.  Wendi Fischer, fresh from

her trip to India represented our Membership committee.  Kevin was presented with his Red Badge and Rotary pin and will be joining with the classification of Energy Technology – as always our club gave Kevin a rousing standing ovation as Rotary’s newest member.  His interests are history (Civil War) and sports, so please take an opportunity to reach out to Kevin and learn more as he makes his way toward the Blue Badge.

We ended our club program with a presentation from John Martinka, who updated us about an international project that we collaborated with Bellevue Lunch in Borjomi, Georgia.  We supported with funds the donation of a mini-van to a day center that supports children with disabilities in the area.  John shared with the club a video of the day centers work and its impact – click here to view.

Our speaker, Melissa Devita was introduced by Howard Johnson.  Melissa explained the changes that are happening with school funding across the state and within the districts. This is in light of the recent changes from State government in support of the McLeary ruling.  Her knowledge of the impact was impressive and Melissa did a good job of addressing our members questions.  President Kaj thanked her for the talk and presented the donation to RFH in her name, thanks to Colly Radford’s support.

The meeting ended with a thanks to the guests for attending and a quote from Preston Morgan: “I am enough of a realist to understand that I can’t reach every child, but I am more of an optimist to get up every morning and try.”

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